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Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers pp 2104–2105Cite as

Ṣūfī: Abū al-Ḥusayn ҁAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ҁUmar al-Ṣūfī

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BornRayy (near Tehran, Iran), 903

Died 986

Ṣūfī spent his life as an astronomer in Iran, in close relation to the regional rulers of the Buyid dynasty. The most important of his several astronomical and other works was the Book on the Constellations (circa 964). In it he gave a description of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, based on the Arabic translations of Ptolemy ’s Almagest, with detailed critique for each of the 1,025 stars in Ptolemy’s star catalog, based on his own observations. Two drawings of each constellation were added, one “as seen in the sky” and one “as seen on the (celestial) globe.”

The book became very influential both in the Orient and in Europe. Its text and nomenclature were taken up by many later authors, such as the encyclopedist Qazwīnī (died: 1283) and the Timurid Prince and astronomer Ulugh Beg in the star catalog of his astronomical handbook (epoch: 1437). For centuries, Arabic-Islamic astronomers followed the forms of the constellation figures as drawn in...

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Selected References

  • Al-Ṣūfī, ҁAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ҁUmar (1986). Kitāb Ṣuwar al-Kawākib. Frankfurt am Main. (Facsimile of Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Marsh 144.)

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  • Kunitzsch, Paul (1986). “The Astronomer Abū ‘l-Ḥusayn al-Ṣūfī and His Book on the Constellations.” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 3: 56–81. (Reprinted in Kunitzsch, The Arabs and the Stars, XI. Northampton: Variorum, 1989.)

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  • Kunitzsch, Paul (2008). “‘Abd al-Ṛahman al-Ṣufi”. The Encyclopaedia of Islam Three, 2008-1: 9–12. Leiden – Boston: Brill.

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  • Schjellerup, H. C. F. C. (trans.) (1874). Description des étoiles fixes. St. Pétersbourg. (French translation of Ṣūfī’s text.); reprint Frankfurt am Main: Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 1986.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Paul Kunitzsch

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  1. Paul Kunitzsch
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Correspondence to Paul Kunitzsch .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Science, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA

    Thomas Hockey

  2. University of California, Irvine School of Physical Sciences, Irvine, CA, USA

    Virginia Trimble

  3. Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Thomas R. Williams

  4. Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, USA

    Katherine Bracher

  5. York Univesity, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Richard A. Jarrell

  6. University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Jordan D. Marché II

  7. University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

    JoAnn Palmeri

  8. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Daniel W. E. Green

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Kunitzsch, P. (2014). Ṣūfī: Abū al-Ḥusayn ҁAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ҁUmar al-Ṣūfī. In: , et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1346

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